Methods, Not Methodology (4): Effective Meetings

The Problems

Two problems:

• There’re tons of articles and books that talk about meeting efficiency and effectiveness, but “too many meetings”, “meeting takes too long” are still the most popular items in retrospective meetings.
• People complain about meeting efficiency but do nothing to change it, especially even don’t change the behavior of themselves.

What can we do to improve it?

The General Reasons

• Well, the first problem (too many meetings) is actually not a meeting problem. It’s a problem related to team maturity.
• The second problem (People are keen to blame others but never change themselves) is also a problem that has nothing to do with a meeting.
• Lack of awareness of effective rules is always a reason candidate.

The Observed New Reasons

I won’t repeat well known reasons here. I just share something new based on my observations. “New” is not really new. It means something people are keen to ignore even if they know it, whether consciously or subconsciously. Here they are:

• Lack of attention to the purpose of holding a meeting
• Lack of attention to the purpose of a specific meeting
• Emphasizing the function/skills of facilitator removes some obligation from individual attendees.

Also I noticed the existing guidelines are usually verbose. There could be a short checklist to remind people some principles, bad smells and good practices. At the end I will try to provide one.

The Purpose of Holding a Meeting

When should we call for a meeting? When there’s some discussion (bidirectional communication) needed. It means:

• Don’t hold a meeting when you just want to announce something
• Don’t hold a meeting when you just want some kinds of report
• Don’t attend a meeting if you don’t want to say something
• Don’t attend a meeting if you don’t need to say something. Do something else that is valuable.

The purpose also defines attendees:

• Don’t gather people together if you just want to talk to them one by one, or individual groups.

The Purpose of a Specific Meeting

You can discuss a single fact/idea from infinite perspectives, but only few of them are related to current purpose. Just visualize / highlight / emphasize the purpose of this meeting at any time you think it’s wandering off the topic.

Individual Responsibility

We emphasized the facilitating skills too much. It gives an illusion that it’s the facilitator’s responsibility to make the meeting efficient and effective. It’s true, but it doesn’t mean the individual attendees do not need to do anything. On the contrary, attendee’s behavior is more important than the facilitator’s skill in terms of the efficiency and effectiveness. For example, when attending a meeting, make sure to:

• Follow the rules and practices
• Help to maintain the rules and practices
• Be prepared
• Raise your concern, contribute by sharing your thought
• Don’t interrupt others, give others opportunity to interrupt you
• …

A Pocket Guide for Efficient and Effective Meeting

Other blogs of the Methods, Not Methodology series:

• Methods, Not Methodology (I): Validated Code Review
• Methods, Not Methodology (2): Effective and Validated 5 Whys
• Methods, Not Methodology (3): Knowing Everything at the Beginning?